


A Dead Man's Vengeance

by Defira



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Detective Noir, F/M, Jazz Age
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-05 02:48:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defira/pseuds/Defira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Dragon Age, but not as we know it.</p><p>Kristoff Havener, FBI Special Agent, is dead- or at least, that's the story. Deep undercover investigating the violent underworld of Amaranthine and the shadowy mob boss known only as The Mother, the heat gets a little too much, and he vanishes... only to re-emerge on the backstreets of the city, following cold trails and doing his best to uncover the darkness stalking the night.</p><p>Enter Elissa Cousland, disgraced heiress and femme fatale, playing the game by her own rules. The daughter of a murdered Senator, Elissa is used to getting her own way, and she is no stranger to the dirty workings of Amaranthine. And she wants Kristoff to play with her. </p><p>But Amaranthine is a dirty old town, and there are more players than either of them could have imagined. As the City of Jazz begins to collapse under the weight of its own decadence, it's up to two unlikely heroes- a dead man and a vixen heiress- to save the city from The Mother. Before it's too late for all of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He didn’t look too bad, for a dead guy.

Kristoff smiled ruefully at his reflection, the razor sliding along the edge of his jaw and down his neck as he assessed the changes in the cheap bathroom mirror. The edges of the glass were rusted and still fogged from the steam of his shower, and the overhead light was an unpleasant yellow fluorescent that cast an unhealthy pall over his skin.

With the dark circles under his eyes, he could have passed for a dead body, actually.

He ran the razor under the water, rubbing the last of the soap away with the thin towel around his neck. From the sweat beading on his back, it probably wasn’t worth having had the shower; the air con unit in the window was purely for decorative purposes only, and he had the other window wedged open in the hope a night breeze would turn up.

So far all he’d got was cigarette smoke from a room somewhere below him, and the cacophony of the late night rush hour. The summer heat was oppressive, and the curtains didn’t even move- the air was thick and wouldn’t be bringing him any relief tonight. Somewhere in the distance he could hear a car alarm going off, and there was an argument going on several floors below him.

He sighed and set the razor back in its case, carefully wiping down the sink to avoid leaving any obvious hints as to his presence in the room. He eyed the half empty bottle of aftershave in the kit, an old gift from his wife, and discarded the thought. No point to it at this hour, and who knew how carefully they’d done their research- if someone managed to ID him even through a bad haircut just because he’d worn the wrong cologne, well… he wouldn’t be around to live with the jokes and the fallout, but he didn’t really want to have to think about it.

He wandered back into the bedroom, his feet scuffing over the well-worn carpet. The threads were coming loose in a few places. He still had the hand towel hooked around his neck, and he rubbed away the sweat trickling down his spine between his shoulders. It didn’t make much of a difference, the damp patches on his A-shirt proof that the shower hadn’t really done a lot to ease the oppressive heat. 

A satchel lay open on the tacky chipboard table, the police file still open on the transcript of the interview with Bartholemew Reek, an appropriately named piece of shit who liked to think of himself as a pimp- Kristoff just thought of him as a bully and an asshole. He was an opportunistic bastard, claimed to have family with pull back in Orzammar; there were far too many charges of battery and sexual harassment that had been dropped over the years for it to be all bluster and no substance.

Kristoff had had him pulled in for the usual charges, leaning on him extra hard to see what he knew about a trafficking operation run by a fellow named Cyril. Sources seemed to imply that Cyril was working with The Mother, and that was the fish that Kristoff wanted to catch. But he’d already read the interrogation twice now, and he hadn’t turned up a damn thing.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, the springs whining in protest, and flipped aimlessly through the file. The television was chattering softly in the background, and a familiar name caught his attention. He looked up in time to see his own face staring back at him from the screen, the slider down the bottom declaring ‘ _Police baffled by cop killing_ ’.

Grimacing, he reached for the remote and flicked the volume up as the video changed to footage shot from a helicopter.

“… was found in swampland in the next county over, three days after his disappearance was reported by his family,” said a female voice, a heavy Scottish brogue colouring her speech. The helicopter swept over a boggy scene, yellow police tape the only splash of colour in the bleak landscape. Tiny figures moved through the swamp, familiar uniforms even if he couldn’t make out individual faces. “Special Agent Havener was deeply involved in Operation Orphan, the FBI's investigation into the gang warfare in Amaranthine and the shadowy figure known simply as The Mother. Although police have yet to make an official statement, it is widely expected that his death will be ruled a homicide. Whether or not the local gangs had any involvement is yet to be ruled out. Cassie Merrivale, Ferelden National News.”

The footage cut back to the anchor, who had the typical expression of professional regret in place. But there was no lingering over his fate, no mourning the dead- he launched right into the next story, claims of match fixing in the national baseball league. Kristoff frowned at it, uninterested, and went back to the file, hoping to see something that would spark his interest.

The phone rang.

He lurched to his feet in an instant, the file clattering to the ground and his hand going instantly to his hip where his gun used to be. The phone rang again, an ancient mechanical tone that he thought had gone out of style a good twenty years ago- although to be fair, the phone itself looked like it should have been retired twenty years ago.

There were no bugs in the room- it was the first thing he’d checked when they’d given him the key. And only two people knew where he was staying- only two people knew that he was even alive, for that matter, and not face down in a swamp- and neither of them would have been calling at this hour unless something had gone very, very wrong.

It rang a third time; if something had gone wrong and he had to move, he had to know. He couldn’t let it ring out. Inching up beside the bedside table, he picked up the handset and put it up against his ear.

“Hello?”

“Special Agent Havener.” The voice on the other end of the phone was female, whisky smooth and amused; he could imagine the curl of her lip as she smiled against the receiver. “You sound good for a dead man.”

His heart lurched into his throat. “Who is this?” he asked flatly, glancing towards the open window. If they’d already found him, what were the chances they were already watching him?

“A friend,” she said simply. Her accent was Ferelden but distinctly aristocratic- it was a voice that suggested an education at the finest academies in the land. It was a voice that screamed old money, and lots of it. “I’d like to meet up for drinks.”

“Forgive my scepticism, but I’m not in the business of accepting drinks from a stranger,” he said, picking up the entire phone and walking backwards into the room as far as the cable would reach. He wasn’t precisely out of sight, but it would hopefully make a difference. “How did you get this number?”

She chuckled, a husky sound that sent a little slither of awareness down his spine. “You needn’t sound so suspicious, dear Kristoff. I have some information that I think will benefit your investigation and I’d like to make sure it’s in the right hands for the job.”

There was something sexual about the way she emphasised _right hands_ , but he dismissed it. “Any information regarding current police investigations can be submitted by calling-”

“I’m not interested in calling the hotline like a good little girl scout,” she said sharply, cutting him off. “I have something for _you_ , Agent Havener. It may save your life- what little there is to be saved.”

He paused, considering her offer. “Why me?” he said finally, still watching the windows warily.

“I don’t need a reason, Agent Havener,” she said cagily.

“Given that I’m to trust you without any reason to? I don’t think I’m interested in-”

A huffed sigh came from the other end of the line. “You intrigue me,” she said, almost irritably. “It’s not many men who would sacrifice so much for the pursuit of justice.”

She sounded as if she admired him for it, or at least inquisitive because of it. All it did for him was leave a hollow ache in his chest, as he did his best not to think of everything he had left behind for this. It was best for his family if they thought him dead- they were safe now. It was for the greater good.

“How do I know you’re not The Mother?” he asked bluntly.

Her laughter surprised him. “I could not think of many women less suited to the title than me, Agent Havener,” she said; he was disturbed by how vividly he could imagine her mouth as she smiled. “I am quite certain there are laws against women like me-”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t take the name,” he said pointedly. “Perhaps for the irony?”

She was still smiling; the amusement in her voice was unmistakeable. “I swear to you on my sinner’s soul, I am not The Mother,” she said. “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink to prove my innocence?”

A voice like that, she sounded anything but innocent. 

“And make my false death a real one? Not interes-”

“I have information about Cyril,” she said quickly.

That was enough to leave him in shocked silence for a few moments. “How do you know that name?” he finally said, more wary of her now than ever before.

She made a sound that made it obvious she was smirking. “I have a vested interest in this filthy old city of ours, and letting the likes of The Mother and her cronies run rampant is not idyllic in my mind.”

“Something we have in common,” he said, unable to keep the amusement from his voice.

She chuckled in response, smoky and warm. “What say you, Agent? Don’t make me beg, now.”

He had no excuse for his answer. He wanted to say that speaking to someone for the first time in over a day was the prompt, that the sheer weight of responsibility was already beginning to suffocate him, and that he missed the simple joy of banter and flirting. He ran a hundred excuses of the like through his head in the hours after the phone call, and he still couldn’t find one that explained his answer.

“Something tells me you enjoy begging, ma’am.”

A delighted laugh sounded through the phone, somehow more stimulating for the fact that it was the most genuine noise she’d made so far. “You surprise me, Agent Havener,” she said joyously, “you are not the man your television appearances make you out to be.” 

He bit his tongue, already regretting the flirtation. He still had a wife; for all that she thought he was dead and cold on a slab in the city morgue. “A brief interview at a police media conference is hardly an insight into my character,” he said, somewhat curtly. “What news do you have about Cyril?”

“No no,” she said, clucking her tongue disapprovingly. “You can’t avoid me that easily. Shall we say… nine o’clock?”

He glanced at the red letters on the bedside clock. “That’s an hour and a half,” he said pointedly. “Are you intending for us to meet halfway to Denerim?”

She chuckled yet again. “Nothing of the sort,” she said. “But you will need time to dress in something more appropriate than that grubby old singlet.”

Kristoff froze, his eyes fixed on the window. The building across the street was dark, but that meant nothing. “Where are you?” he asked coldly.

More infuriating laughter- this woman laughed at _everything_. “Rest assured, my dear Agent, I am nowhere close. So you can stop staring at the window as if it’s about to burst into flames.”

“Where are you?” he snarled, rounding on his feet and stalking across the room- at least until the phone cable went taut and he had to stop or lose the connection. “This room was checked thoroughly for bugs-”

“Oh, now you’re just getting tiresome. A lady never gives up her secrets on the first date, Mister Havener. She needs some allure to ensure there will be more than one encounter.”

“There will be _no_ first encounter,” he said furiously, wrenching the bed away from the wall and checking behind it. Next on his list was the malfunctioning air conditioning unit, and he pulled away the front panel to look for any obvious tampering.

“Of course there will. You’re far too curious- you can’t let an opportunity like this slip through your fingers.” There was laughter in her voice; she was amused at his anger, damn her! “Meet me in an hour and a half at The Manor.”

He froze again. “That’s downtown,” he said. “That’s Baroness territory.”

“Clever boy. I’ll see you then.”

The line went dead.

__________

Amaranthine was a dirty old town; it was something he and his mystery caller could both agree on. It was tired, immoral- groaning under the weight of age and corruption and violence. The rich got richer and the poor got ground underfoot a little more every day. And in between lay a seething mess of gangs and crime syndicates who had their hands in every pocket in the city.

The people in charge didn’t want to see it. They held their black tie galas and charity dinners uptown, ten thousand for a bad seat, and pretended they weren’t wading in their own filth. Meanwhile a dozen blocks away a truck turned up full of butchered elvish immigrants, but it would only ever be second billing in the news headline.

Much more important that the beautiful people had their moment in the spotlight and the obscenity got swept under the rug.

He had the taxi drop him off a block from the address she’d given him- a skeevy dive down near the riverfront, a bar called The Manor. Corner of Black Street and Marsh Avenue, where most of the street lights had been shot out and the night was only lit by the seedy flickering neon of the pubs and adult stores and the occasional cathouse pretending to be tasteful while orange flickering letters spelled out exactly what was on offer inside. Late night massage and skin shows weren’t exactly discreet.

He could feel the thump of the bass through his feet, the faint hint of jazz drifting on the wind. Raucous laughter echoed along the street as well, accompanied by the occasional shout. He started when he heard the screech of tires, and then scowled at himself- no faster way to out himself than if someone caught him jumping at shadows.

The harbour was close enough that he wrinkled his nose at the stench, turning up the edges of his jacket collar to shield against the wind creeping in from the coast as he crossed the road. The Manor wasn’t exactly a high class establishment, the blue neon name guttering as if it was on its last legs. He felt exposed, certain that unfriendly eyes were watching him. This was gang territory after all, and the Baroness tended to inspire a certain fanaticism in her band of miscreants. 

There was an unmoving figure lying along the wall beside the door, and he did his best to ignore it and face forward. He wasn’t an Agent right now; in all probability it was likely just a homeless fellow, sheltering from the wind coming off the harbour. No proof it was a body.

Not that it would be unusual in this area of town.

He shoved open the door with his shoulder, conscious of the way the conversation lulled for a moment at his entrance. The bar was dim and badly lit- there were a few blue spotlights shining on a low stage on the far wall, and a few fluoro strips above the bar itself- but he could still the flat stares directed at him as he hesitated in the doorway. After a few seconds the music picked up volume, and talk began to build again.

There was a girl- she was too young to be a woman- perched on a tall stool on the stage, a guitar held in her waifish hands. She was singing something soulful and jazz inspired, but it didn’t help that one of the strings on the guitar was tuned flat. Her gaze followed him as he crossed towards the bar, and it certainly wasn’t welcoming.

He pulled out one of the stools and settled down, looking up and down the length of the bar. No one met his eyes, all carefully keeping their attention focussed on their drinks instead. It wasn’t the first time he’d done beat work though, and it was hardly the first time he’d found himself in a hostile environment. Signalling to the bartender with a fiver, he waited until she wandered within hearing range.

She didn’t look all that interested in his money, but at least she wasn’t outright hostile like the atmosphere at his back. “What can I get ya?” she said, her sleeves pushed up above her biceps; she wasn’t shy about the ink she wore, including a few symbols that looked suspiciously like clan insignia. Nothing he recognised as the Baroness though.

“I’m looking for a woman,” he said politely, folding his hands together in front of him on the bar.

The bartender rolled her eyes, chewing loudly on a piece of gum while she polished a beer mug with a rag. “We ain’t that kind of bar, sweetie,” she said flatly, in a tone that suggested it was hardly the first time she’d answered this question. “Plenty of places along the street for you to get some skin.”

“Not that kind of woman,” he said. “I was asked to meet someone here.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “I ain’t no maître d’,” she said. “You lookin’ for someone, you find them yourself.”

“I was just hoping-”

“You order a drink and we’re good, honey. I ain’t got nothin’ else for ya.”

He clenched his jaw; he knew a dead end when he saw one. “Just a whiskey, neat.”

“You’ll need more than a fiver for that.”

“You can charge it to me, Lana,” said a familiar female voice to his right. The bartender tensed for a moment before nodding her head stiffly.

“O’course, ma’am.”

With an uncomfortable sense of destiny nipping at his heels, Kristoff turned to face his mysterious benefactor and couldn’t help the expression of surprise that crossed over his face.

The woman before him looked ridiculously out of place in the filth of a dive like this- she wore a skin fitting blue evening dress, with plenty of skin on show despite the blustery cold beyond the door. The wide brimmed hat perched on her head at an alluring angle did a decent job of obscuring her features, but he could probably write that off as the bad lighting in the bar. Pale skin dusted with freckles and adorned with the occasional scar, and a wide mouth painted cherry red as she smiled at him the way a predator eyes off their prey in the moments before lunging.

And more than that, she was familiar- because it was a little hard not to be familiar with the media darling and most infamous heiress in all of Ferelden.

Her smile was as off-putting as it was intriguing. “So glad you could make it, my dear,” she said, the same smoke and whiskey voice that had purred down the phone. She held out her hand towards him.

“Miss Elissa Cousland,” he said stiffly, staring at her hand as if expecting it to turn into a snake. “I wasn’t aware that you were the Baroness.”

Her laughter sent the tension in the room skyrocketing upwards. The bartender went so rigid it was a wonder she didn’t shatter like glass. “Oh, you dear sweet man,” Elissa said, batting him affectionately on the arm. “That’s so delightfully naïve of you. I’m not the Baroness.”

“You are not?”

“Oh, of course not. I killed her- some time ago actually, I’m surprised you lads up at the agency weren’t aware of it sooner.” She gestured to a table towards the back of the room. “Shall we?”


	2. Chapter 2

She looked a million dollars, and he would have bet double that amount that she was more trouble than she was worth. She wore her arrogance like some women wore fur coats, and she had no doubt that the power was in her hands. Only a very confident woman- or a very foolish woman- would invite a dead cop into the lair of a known mob boss and then casually admit to having killed that very same mob boss.

Designer clothes and the arrogance to rival the gods and a killer smile- Elissa Cousland was going to be trouble alright.

He glanced past her to the table she was indicating, before fixing her with a flat stare. “This was your idea of discretion?”

She pursed her lips as if she were blowing him a kiss, her eyes sparkling with merriment. “This is my territory,” she said indulgently, “and more than that, The Mother knows she isn’t welcome here ever since one of her favourite goons met with an _unfortunate_ accident a few streets over.” She sounded completely insincere about the mishap. “And since I’ve not precisely made the death of the Baroness a public matter, no one knows that this part of town belongs to me. Except for darling girls like my dear Lana here.” 

The bartender muttered something indistinct and slapped two whiskeys on the counter before retreating to the far end of the bar to continue polishing dirty glasses.

Elissa picked one up and lifted it almost daintily to her lips. “No one expects to see Ferelden’s favourite fallen angel slumming it in a dockside bar- just like no one expects to see you here, my dear.”

“You can save the endearments, ma’am,” he said stiffly. “And I’d rather any further discussions took place in private.

There was just a hint of pink, a flash of tongue, as she sampled the whiskey. Enough to make his blood surge in response; from the smug look in her eyes, she knew exactly what it did to him. “I’m _offering_ you privacy,” she said innocently, gesturing with a tilt of her head towards the same table at the back of the room.

“That’s hardly-”

“So suspicious, Mister Justice,” she scolded, shaking her head at him.

He frowned at her. “Mister Justice?”

“Be a good boy and bring your drink with you- it’s not cheap. I’d hate to see good whiskey go to waste.”

She sashayed off towards the corner- there was no other word for it, not with the way her hips moved and the dress clung to her curves as if it’d been painted on. She had to know that every set of eyes in the room watched her go, had to be used to that sort of attention, and by all appearances she seemed to delight in it.

His ma had told him old stories when he was a boy, stories from back home about the succubus, demons from the Fade who took the shape of comely women to lure men to their doom. They fed on attention, on the lusts and desires of the mortals they drove mad.

Watching Elissa Cousland enthrall a room, he could well believe those stories had a basis in truth.

The table was secluded enough, an old booth with worn velvet cushions on the seats and a curtain draped artfully to separate it from the booth behind it. It wouldn’t necessarily protect them from prying ears, but-

His skin crawled as he brushed past the curtain, a sixth sense that burned like ice in the back of his nose. “You’ve used magic here,” he said, eyeing her sternly.

She shrugged as she shimmied into the booth, the blue lights from the stage reflecting off her gown in a way that made her look like she was wearing nothing but shadows and starlight. “ _I_ haven’t used magic,” she said flippantly. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about it.” She draped herself elegantly over the ruined velvet and scarred wood, a diamond lying amidst the ruins.

“You know what I mean,” he said, sitting stiffly opposite her, noting how blatantly inviting her body language was. He didn’t make a habit of reading the gossip rags, but clearly the stories about Ferelden’s disgraced heiress were not exaggerated. “There’s sorcery at work here, and this bar isn’t registered-”

She tipped her head back and laughed, the light spilling over the curve of her neck. It was hard not to notice it, and he clenched his jaw until she settled again, arms arched over the back of the booth in an open display of aggression and sexuality. “I sincerely doubt that anything in this quarter of the city is registered correctly, Agent Havener,” she said loftily. “Violations of the Magical Prohibition Act are hardly top priority for you at the moment, are they? Or have I misread you?” 

“I can always call it in.”

Her smirk was far too knowing. “You wanna put me in cuffs, Agent? I’ll play along.”

The flush of heat that accompanied the lurid images in his head made him feel like a fumbling teen again. “I’d appreciate if you’d cut the banter, Miss Cousland,” he said coldly. “I’m not here for that.”

“Shame,” she said, putting her clutch on the table and tugging out a dainty little silver flipbook. The matching engraved lighter made it obvious what she was doing a moment later. She lit the cigarette, the brief flare of the flame lighting her features beneath her broad brimmed hat. She was done up to the nines, not a hair out of place on her pretty little head. She held out the engraved silver case in his direction. “Cigarette, Agent Havener?”

“They say those things will kill you,” he said, reaching out and taking one anyway.

She smirked. “It’s a good thing you’re already dead, then, isn’t it?” she said, offering her lighter to him. Her fingers brushed quite deliberately against his, her skin soft and her touch gentle. It sent a shiver down his back, and once he’d lit the cigarette he slid the lighter back across the table, rather than risk touching her again.

“So, Miss Cousland,” he said, appreciating the rich flavour of the smoke as he took that first marvellous breath in, “you’ve somehow managed to trace me with relative ease, even though the rest of the world- including the local police force- consider me deceased. You contacted me and lured me out in the middle of the night under the pretence of having information about a suspect in an FBI homicide case, into gang territory no less. And upon arrival, you not only disregard all need for discretion, but you also openly admit to a Federal Agent that you are a murderer.”

She grinned delightedly.

“Now, I may not be up to date on all the fine social news of the fast and the fabulous, but I wouldn’t have taken you to be _that_ stupid, Miss Cousland.”

She breathed out slowly, the smoke curling from her lip. “That’s very astute of you, Agent Havener,” she said. “And I commend you for that- appearances are not always what they seem.”

“They rarely are, ma’am.”

“Please, call me Elissa.” She took another drag on the cigarette, tapping the ash into a shallow dish on the table between them. “I confess- the glibness suits my purposes most of the time. You’d be surprised just how badly my enemies underestimate me when they think me nothing more than a foolish little rich girl.”

“And what enemies would a foolish little rich girl like you have?”

For the first time something other than amusement flickered in her eyes- a flash of anger, like lightning over the distant ocean. “My daddy had enough to see him get a belly full of lead in his own home,” she said pointedly. “And mama and most of the house staff. I’ve no shortage of enemies, Agent. Surprisingly, I’ve even accrued a few of my own.”

He bowed his head in concession. “My apologies, Miss Cousland,” he said, taking a sip of the whiskey. “I didn’t mean to make light of your personal situation. The death of Senator Cousland was a great loss to the nation.”

She snorted, an unladylike sound that hinted at anger and grief and bitterness. “Apologies don’t bring them back, Agent,” she said, exhaling in a rush. Waving her hand to display the smoke, she sat forward. “But enough chit chat and pleasantries; we’ve business to attend to.”

“What about-”

“The area is ensorcelled.” She indicated the circle around them. “That’s what you felt when you touched the curtain. No one can hear us unless they’re standing on the table.”

He sat back, considering. “So you have a mage in your employ,” he said slowly. What she spoke of was no off the cuff sort of spell that just anyone could buy in a back alley. This was proper security magic.

She waggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Don’t you know, Agent? Prohibition doesn’t count to those of us who can buy our way out of a bind.”

“You mock the laws and institutions that keep our great land peacefully guarded, Miss Cousland.”

Elissa scoffed at him. “I mock bureaucratic nonsense that impedes the rights of citizens and inhibits the growth of local industry, burdening the national economy as a whole,” she said, taking a healthy mouthful of the whiskey. There was a spark in her now, anger and passion rousing a fire in her. “And don’t give me any fool arguments about national security and regulating magic use- prohibition has done nothing but damaged Ferelden for well over a generation, and-” She looked visibly startled, and shook herself. “But I didn’t come here to debate poor pieces of legislation with you. I’m here to help you with The Mother.” 

“So you’ve said,” he said, “and I’m not quite sure how. And, truth be told, I’m a little disconcerted that you uncovered my ruse so quickly. Why the interest in me, Miss Cousland?”

“I told you to call me Elissa,” she said, her voice dropping back to husky as if it were just a switch she could flip at will. “And the interest in you, Agent? Let’s just say I have developed a certain… _feel_ , for the people I involve myself with. I’ve seen your work, I’ve seen how you handle yourself, and I was impressed. I was already looking into the murders and their connection to The Mother myself when I heard about your death.” She took another drag on the cigarette. “Naturally, I was devastated at the loss of such a sterling officer, but then… something about it didn’t ring true. Call it a sixth sense.”

“That’s a rather desperate hope to place upon a sixth sense.”

She tapped the side of her nose as if it were a great secret. “It’s very rarely led me astray so far,” she said cryptically. “So I called in a few favours and viewed the body at the morgue.”

He blinked in shock. “You… you _what?_ ”

“The body. The one they were claiming was yours. I told them I was your sister. I must say, it was a clever match, and the fake paperwork was immaculate. But it still didn’t sit right with me, so I had a friend look into it.”

When she refused to elaborate, he raised his eyebrows at her and she chuckled again. “She has a particular skill set that is not utilised in her current employment, specialising in accessing difficult to acquire information.”

“She’s a hacker.”

“If I admitted as much, that would make me an accessory as well as a murderer,” she said with a smile. “Just how much do you want me to confess to you, Agent?”

He ignored the flirtation. “So you found out I was alive.”

“Indeed. And had her repair the files and bury them- no one should be able to access them now. Your secret is safe.” 

“I suppose I should be grudgingly thankful,” he said carefully, “but I can’t help but feel nothing but irritation at your blatant disregard for the safety of a Federal Agent and the security of an investigation that has cost tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money.”

She waved her hand flippantly, as if that barely even interested her. “You’re here, and you’re a damn sight safer with me on your side than you were bumming about in that motel. It’s like the plot to every bad detective movie. First place you look is the seedy run down motel, it’s like painting a big ol’ target on your back, Agent Havener.”

He studied her over the top of his whiskey glass. “You watch too many movies, Miss Cousland,” he said, taking another drink.

“I’ve asked you to call me Elissa.”

“And I’ve taken it under consideration. Now, instead of talking circles around me, why don’t you give me what I’m here for? When did you kill the Baroness?”

“About six months ago,” she said, not even batting an eyelash at the admittance.

“How?”

“That would be telling, Agent Havener. A lady needs some mystery.”

He clenched his jaw in frustration. “And you took over her interests?”

Elissa took a long drag on the cigarette, eyeing him carefully. “Yes,” she said finally, and infuriatingly left it at that.

He nearly slammed his hand down on the table in anger, but held himself in check; years with the Bureau had taught him better self-control than that. “May I ask why?”

She took her time answering, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I was bored,” she said simply. “And if I didn’t, The Mother would have taken this territory. I objected to that.”

“So you are masquerading as the Baroness?”

“No- she had ghastly taste. And a penchant for melodrama that was insultingly gauche. The Baroness is dead- I just haven’t got around to letting everybody know.”

“Looks pretty obvious when a dame like you walks into a place like this, in her territory” he said dryly.

She waved her hand indifferently. “My boys are keeping an eye out for me,” she said vaguely, “and you forget that it’s _my_ territory now.”

He held up his glass. “Nothing to stop someone walking in a ordering a drink- even someone with not so pure intentions.”

“Well, I never have pure intentions and I get in just fine,” Elissa said, eyeing him over the top of her glass as she sipped slowly. “And you seem to be horribly underestimating me- have I or have I not run this area of town efficiently and quietly without any of you boys at the Bureau any the wiser?”

“That’s a little above your pay grade, Miss Cousland.”

She laughed. “Oh please, Kristoff, if I wanted I could access the entirety of the Bureau’s dirty secrets and sell them to whatever news network I desired. Or hold onto them for blackmail purposes. Or print them out and have them framed and displayed artfully around my-”

“Alright, alright,” he said irritably. “I get the point. You killed the Baroness. You took over the territory and decided to meddle further. How did you come to learn about The Mother and Cyril?”

She pouted at him, her bedroom eyes only just visible beneath the brim of the hat. “So determined to get down to business, Agent Havener- don’t you want to play a little first? Maybe enjoy a few drinks?”

“My time is limited, Miss Cousland,” he said stiffly. “Please respect that while I am-”

“Are you always this uptight, Agent Havener?” she said, leaning forward and resting her chin on her hands. “Do you never have the desire to just let go and have fun?”

“I do not consider drinking with a rogue agent in gang territory to be fun, believe me.”

She tsked softly. “I could teach you to loosen up, you know,” she said. “I could teach you so very much.”

“Miss Cousland-”

“You should call me Elissa,” she said once again, smiling widely. “Although I suppose it would be deliciously naughty to hear Miss Cousland whispered against my ear.”

The suggestion made his skin tighten, his blood heating in his face; beneath the table, he clenched his hands into fists, nails digging in to the flesh of his palm. The idea was there now, an image of sweat and tangled sheets and his stubble rasping across the delicate skin of her neck as he roughly whispered her name in worship.

“Miss Cousland, while I am…” He clenched his jaw as he struggled to force out the word. “… flattered at your attentions, I am afraid I must decline. I am easily ten years your senior-”

“Age has never been a hindrance for me in the past, Kristoff,” she said silkily.

The sound of his name in that husky voice made his blood surge. “And more importantly, I am married,” he continued, frustrated by her flippancy. “And I didn’t give you leave to use my first name.”

“You and your wife have been living separately for the last five months now,” she said, taking another sip of her drink. “She’s spent time overseas with her sister, and she has her own apartment across town. You’ve been in marriage counselling for nearly a year, and it’s not helping.”

“You know what isn’t helping my marriage, Miss Cousland? Your repeated insistence at flirtation and an overfamiliarity that you have not earned.” 

“If your marriage is so fragile that it can be damaged by a few words from a pretty girl, it wasn’t that strong to begin with.”

He saw red. “I’ll be the judge of that,” he snapped, “and I’ll thank you to keep your observations- and your flirtations- to yourself, Miss Cousland. Either tell me why you hunted me down and dragged me out here, or tell me why I shouldn’t have you arrested for interfering with a federal investigation.”

The humour vanished from her eyes, replaced with a steely displeasure that verged on anger. She climbed to her feet, almost looming over him, and reached for her whiskey.

She tipped up the glass, taking the last little droplets from the bottom, before slamming it back down on the counter. “Your elf has a problem holding onto his money. There’s a gambling den over on Square Street, under the-”

“I know the place.”

“Good,” she said, “then you won’t need me to show you how to get there.”

“Indeed not,” he said coolly.

“Excellent,” she said, just as coolly. “In that case, good evening Agent Havener.”

She spun on her heel and left him sitting there, trying not to watch the sway of her hips as she headed for the door and out into the night.


	3. Chapter 3

The door to the bar slammed closed behind her, and the girl on stage hit a sour note, fumbling with the strings as she stammered to correct herself. The conversation in the room was muted and there were plenty of uncomfortable stares thrown his way.

Fantastic. 

He sighed and threw back the last of the whiskey, stubbing the cigarette out in the ashtray. No point hanging around in this void any longer, not when she’d given him the best lead he was likely to get this early in the case. Granted, he’d risked his anonymity in coming to so public a location, but she’d given her word that the streets belonged to her.

Talk was cheap, though, and the state of the city was proof enough of that. He had to hope that his gut instincts were right, and believe that Miss Cousland invested a little more value in words than your average starlet-turned-mob-boss.

Now there was a sentence he hadn’t ever thought he’d be stringing together.

He slid from the booth, his jaw clenching when he felt the shiver of magic passing over his skin, faint whispers that echoed in his ears. He shrugged it off, ignoring the flat stares that followed him across the room and back towards the bar.

Lana was already shaking her head as he reached for his wallet. “Boss lady got you covered, hon,” she said, gesturing to the money in his hand.

He smiled thinly. “I prefer not to find myself indebted to people like your boss,” he said, setting the ten on the counter between them. She was staring at it was a dismayed grimace on her face. “It’s not a snake, Lana.”

She cast him a withering look. “You say that like you’re a funny man,” she said, “but weird shit happens around here. And I ain’t exactly keen on pissing off-”

“You’re not pissing her off by taking my money,” he said irritably.

Lana stared at him for a long moment before shrugging. “You look familiar,” she said slowly, her brow furrowed as she took the money off the bar and tucked it into her belt. “Boss lady brought you round here before on a busy night or something?”

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Maker, say he hadn’t blown his cover already. “Something like that,” he said vaguely. “I get that a lot. One of those faces.” 

“Yeah,” she said, already sounding disinterested. “You need me to call you a cab or something?”

He shook his head. “I don’t have far to go. I’ll be fine.”

He paid no heed to the whispers behind him and the eyes he could feel burning into his back, and headed for the door. Pushing it open with his shoulder, relief washed over him to find that Miss Cousland was not lying in wait for him on the street, and he let out the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. She’d proved herself to be untrustworthy, but… _Maker_. What in the void was he supposed to make of her involvement in all of this? Elissa Cousland was not a name that had _ever_ come up at the agency, with the exception of the awkward few weeks after her father’s assassination. Kristoff hadn’t been assigned to the case- he’d been with Vice for years now, not Homicide- but it had certainly been the talk of the station for hours on end.

All he knew about her was what he’d occasionally seen in his wife’s glossy magazines tossed haphazardly on the couch in the lounge room. Grainy long distances photos of luxury boats and bikini clad figures, red carpet awards nights with gowns that probably cost more than his annual salary, compromising photos taken in the alleys behind nightclubs, her pained reunion with her older brother at the state funeral for their parents. She was a woman of extremes: money and passion and colour and violence.

And now she was apparently a successful underworld figure, toppling one of the oldest syndicates in the city and reclaiming it for herself. A woman with illegal magic at her disposal and the resources to track down an undercover FBI officer within a day. A starlet who giggled and posed for cameras but who had the cunning and mercilessness to kill the Baroness herself, a mob boss who had eluded the feds for decades. 

Elissa Cousland, whatever she was, was a daunting opponent.

He was absurdly grateful that she was not waiting to meet him on the street curb. Grateful, if perhaps a little... disappointed? He shook his head to dispel such nonsense ideas- Elissa Cousland was dangerous, a wildcard that he had no time to contemplate, no matter how intriguing a distraction she provided. He ducked his head and turned his collar up against the foul wind blowing in off the harbour, and headed towards the slightly more affluent streets of the city’s entertainment district.

Namely, an unregistered gaming den on Square Street and a certain elf patron.

It was a good half hour walk from The Manor, and it gave him time to consider his approach should he actually find Cyril on the premises. Square Street was one of those places that was always on the local police radar- not quite as run down as dockside, but not without its share of squalor. It sat on the very edge of the Amaranthine theatre strip, the glitzy restaurants and concert halls drawing the crowds night after night; away from the main streets, the eateries were smaller, the bars quieter. Fewer lights, less colour, a little more discretion. The nightclubs in the back streets actually drew some decent acts on occasion, and unlike dockside you weren’t quite that likely to find drunks lying in the street; the brothels were a little more discreet, and with that sort of pretension to normalcy came a different sort of crowd. The desperation had a different flavour here, not the worn and weary dejection that radiated off the patrons of people like the Manor, but not quite the glitz and glamour of the main drag. Here there was still life in their eyes, a look that promised they weren’t looking to shank you and steal your wallet for the seven bucks still in there; they might just steal it over a game of cards instead. 

There was money to be had here, if you knew where to look and how to play your hand right. And there was blood here, the promise of violence hiding behind sharp, welcoming smiles.

Square Street was no less dangerous just because it held a faint veneer of civility.

There were likely to be police in the area, he noted, but given that it was a week night he was hoping the crowds would have dispersed by this hour. If things went according to plan, he wouldn’t need the backup of any of the local squad cars, but he had to expect the worse. He’d walked these streets often enough in the pursuit of justice that it was entirely likely someone would recognise him, despite his best efforts.

So at this point he couldn’t rule out needing backup.

The streets were brighter, and he began to encounter other pedestrians; he kept his head bowed and walked as fast as he dared. His P22 rested in an inside pocket of his jacket, close at hand if necessary but not obvious to the casual passer-by.

The gaming den in question was an unmarked affair, an old converted basement under a twenty-four hour alchemist. The entrance was down an alley way, lit by a single naked bulb over the stairs and not visible from the street. Kristoff walked with purpose, not giving any clues to anyone who might happen to have been observing the mouth of the alley at that time of night. There was a man sitting in the shadows beside the stairs on a low slung stool, cigarette in his hand and very conveniently wearing a jacket with the alchemist’s logo on the breast pocket.

He watched Kristoff carefully as he approached, taking a long drag on the cigarette; he accepted the extended five dollar note without a word, tucking it into his jacket and gesturing to the heavy steel door at the base of the stairs. Nodding in understanding, Kristoff descended the steps and pushed at the door, putting his shoulder behind the motion to move the great weight of it. 

The smell hit him first- the stench of sweat and unwashed bodies packed tightly together, the acrid, bitter flavour of cheap cigarettes with no breeze to clear it away. The smell of sickly sweet alcohol, left to ferment in the puddles where it fell provided an awkward discord to the earthier, more pungent scents in the room.

Then came the noise; the heavy door was obviously well insulated, given the roar that greeted him as he stepped into the cavernous room. There was a caged ring in the centre of the hall, and two bruised and bloodied men were circling each other in obvious exhaustion, fists held defensively. A crowd was gathered closely about to watch them, and they howled and cheered for blood like madmen. With every punch that landed, the dull thud of fists against flesh, the crowd screeched in approval. The noise in the room was oppressive; it would be all but impossible to conduct private conversations.

It was stiflingly hot, and breathing was made difficult by the smoke and the smells. The door swung closed behind him, the boom rattling through his bones. No one in the room paid him any heed, too fixated on the fight. There were men moving through the crowd, collecting money as it was thrust into the air, calling out odds and goading people to further their debt. It was no different to any other gambling den anywhere else in the city- blood and violence and good old fashioned fun for the boys.

But, according to Elissa, it was here that he was most likely able to find Cyril. He only had a vague description to go on- their only eyewitness that could connect Cyril with the trafficking ring had died a few days ago, a John Doe who’d been rushed to hospital half dead and mostly insensible. His rasped statement in the hours before his death was all they had to go on, and it wasn’t a fantastic lead.

It had led him here though, in however a convoluted manner. Fake deaths and undercover assignments and femme fatales and illegal magic- it was like something out of an old movie.

He could feel sweat trickling down the back of his jacket as he made his way into the crowd, nudging his way through firmly enough that people paid attention, but not so much that they thought he was trying to pick a fight. He gritted his teeth and tried to block out the assault on his senses; it was hot and noisy and the smells were appalling and he could feel hands shoving back. It was a sensory overload, and it wasn’t pleasant. 

He didn’t notice when a man on the far side of the ring did a double take and stared at him, brow furrowed in a frown as he nudged the man beside him. He didn’t feel their eyes on him, or notice the way they began to push through the crowd as well, their path mirroring his. 

The crowd was mostly human, with a handful of dwarves for good measure. Dwarves at least had the coin for a place like this- you wouldn’t likely come across a lot of elves with money to throw away on a boxing match. 

There were one or two young elf girls wearing drab clothing and hanging off the arms foul looking men, girls who met his gaze with dead eyes. Young enough that he had to wonder if they were even legal, as they lifted the corner of their mouths in a sneer and clung tighter to their patrons for the evening. 

He rounded the corner of the caged-in stage and spotted him- a ragged looking elf with gaunt features, sitting on a box dragged close to the ring. His hair was lank and hanging over his face, but was not so messy that it could hide the curve of his ears. He was chewing on a fingernail as he watched the fight, and despite his battered appearance he was quite well dressed- the cut of his jacket suggested he had come into money quite recently. 

He didn’t need the witness description to know that this had to be his suspect. 

The elf glanced up at that moment and made eye contact with him. For a second or two, his expression was disinterested, the half-smile still firmly planted on his face as he chewed at his fingernail. Then realisation dawned in his eyes, and the smile collapsed, giving way to an expression of abject horror.

The game was up- this was most certainly the guy, and he knew exactly what Kristoff was doing there.

“Cyril!” he shouted, shoving his way through the crowd with a little more force. 

Cyril panicked, lurching to his feet and clawing his way through the crowd in the opposite direction. 

Kristoff went to follow- only to reel backwards from a punch that connected with the left side of his jaw. 

Staggering back a step, stumbling over someone standing too close behind him, he managed to collect himself just in time to duck under another blow that was aimed at his face again. Dodging to the side, he surged into the side of his attacker, half tackling him under the arm and dragging them both to the floor. He hit his elbow on the concrete floor and swore, but he didn’t have time to fuss over the injury. 

Grabbing his assailant by the collar, he slammed his head against the concrete floor, ignoring the shouts and screams around them as people stumbled away from the fight. The thug’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he went limp.

Kristoff rolled to his feet and away from the body, only to go back down to one knee when he felt a foot shove connect with the back of his legs. Grunting in pain, he managed to swing around and strike his attacker in the hip, sending him toppling to the ground as well. 

There was blood in his mouth from the earlier punch, and he spat it out as he staggered back to his feet for the second time. Around him it was chaos, with people shouting and gesturing- he couldn’t make out a single word in the discord. 

He didn’t have time to make sense of the mess he’d stumbled into, however- he had to catch Cyril before he escaped.

His ears still ringing from the punch, he shoved past the few onlookers who were stupid enough to be standing too close. There were shouts directed his way, and he felt hands grabbing at his jacket, but he brushed them all off. He just about tore the door off its frame in his haste, despite the weight of the damned thing, and then tore up the steps two at a time. 

At street level, the doorman was staggering back to his feet, a dazed expression on his face; he didn’t give Kristoff any grief when he went sprinting past him after the retreating figure at the far end of the alley. 

Damn his luck! The goons must have recognised him, because he didn’t think fate was kind enough to him for him to assume they’d confused him with someone else. He’d certainly pissed off a fair number of the criminal underworld in this city- he’d just hoped that with the change to his appearance and the reports circulating about his death, that he’d have more time before people began to grow suspicious.

Skidding around the corner, he hesitated for a moment in confusion, the elf no longer ahead of him. A clang sounded off to the left, and there was movement out of the corner of his eye; spinning to face it, he spotted Cyril on the first floor of the fire escape, frantically trying to pull the ladder up so that Kristoff couldn’t follow.

Cyril looked up and spotted him, his expression panicked. Fumbling to his feet, he lunged for the ladder and began to climb.

Kristoff took a running leap and grabbed at the fire escape, grunting when it came loose with a screech and a shower of rust flakes. He stumbled, rolling his ankle as he landed, and rolling out of the way so the ladder didn’t smash him in the side of his head. The whole frame was shaking as Cyril raced upwards, already three floors ahead of him, and with a grimace Kristoff lurched back to his feet and surged up the ladder after him. 

The metal whined and creaked, clearly not used to such violent activity; Cyril was light on his feet and nimble, but he clearly wasn’t in the best of health. Kristoff was slowly gaining on him, taking the stairs two or three at a time as he fought to make up ground on the suspect. 

Cyril reached the roof ahead of him and kicked over a potted plant that one of the residents had tried to dress up the fire escape with. Broken shards of clay and clods of dirt rained down on him, and he swore as the thick soil went into his eyes. Trying to smear the worst of it as he stumbled upwards, he clenched his teeth against the pain of the grit rubbing beneath his eyelids.

He made the roof a few moments later, tears streaming from his eyes from the irritation. He staggered to a halt when he realised that Cyril was on the far side of the roof, frozen against the silhouette of the city skyline as he stood perched on the ledge.

_Shit._

“Come away from the edge, son,” he said carefully, hand outstretched towards him. He took a few tiny steps towards him, freezing when he heard the panicked wail that came from Cyril’s mouth.

“You don’t understand,” Cyril whispered, his voice cracking for a moment to a hysterical pitch. “I’m no good to her.”

“Who’s she? Is it The Mother?” At the mention of the name, Cyril cringed backwards, swaying towards the edge. “Cyril! Just come away from down from there- you don’t have to worry about what she thinks.”

“You don’t understand,” he repeated, shaking his head over and over again. “There’s nothing left. _No hope_.”

“There’s always hope son,” Kristoff said, inching forward again. “There’s no need to do anything foolish. You come with me, we’ll talk, and-”

“ _She’ll know_.”

Before Kristoff could stop him, he took a step backwards, and went plummeting off the rooftop. 

“ _No!_ ” He lunged forward, crossing the last few feet in a blur; it was a stupid hope, really. He knew what he’d see even before he reached the edge. 

The screams that came from the street below only confirmed it. 

Cyril lay unmoving on the ground, his body twisted at an unnatural angle; there were already three people standing near to him, with a pair rushing across the street even as he watched. One of them was gesturing to where Cyril had fallen from.

“There’s someone on the roof!”

“Holy shit, he was pushed!”

Kristoff lurched backwards, out of sight, but the damage was done. Amidst the screaming and the shouting he could hear them calling out for justice, calling him a murderer, calling for the police. 

Maker. He didn’t have time for this- he couldn’t afford to stay and argue his case and have his cover destroyed. Coming out of hiding only put his family and colleagues in greater danger, because The Mother would take it as further proof that her criminal empire was at risk. And she would come for them, with forces greater than they could dream of matching- as it was, they were only just keeping her in check now. 

There was only one thing he could do- he sprinted away from the edge and back towards the ladder. 

He slid down the fire escape as fast as he could, lurching around on each floor for the next ladder. He could hear the shouting growing louder, the screams from around the corner getting closer. In the distance, he could hear the faint sound of police sirens drawing rapidly nearer. 

He hit the ground running, doubling back when he heard shouting coming from just around the corner. His heart lurched into his throat, his pulse racing, as he realised that in all likelihood he had just lost his best lead and he was about to lose his cover. 

At the end of the alley, a car pulled up with a screech of brakes, and the passenger side door flew open. A blond man leaned across the seat and gestured furiously to him.

“Get in!” he yelled, as the sirens wailed closer and closer.

He didn’t have much of a choice- if he stayed, his cover would be blown out of the water, if it wasn’t already. Lunging for the car, he slid into the seat and slammed the door behind him; they were moving before he was even sitting upright, tires smoking as they peeled away from the curb.

Panting, he snapped “Who the hell are you?”

The driver grunted as he swerved around a slow moving car. “Name’s Andy, this is Nate.” He gestured behind him with a jerk of his chin and Kristoff spun about in the seat. There was a brooding shadow of a man, his face all but pressed to the glass of the back window as he held a gun at the ready, clearly watching for pursuit; Kristoff was horrified to realise he hadn’t even noticed him at all until Andy had pointed him out.

“Names are great and all, but who the fuck are you? Why were you waiting for me?”

Andy smirked. “It ain’t obvious? Elissa sent us. Congratulations, Mister Havener- you’ve caught the eye of the most eligible mob boss in all of Ferelden.”


	4. Chapter 4

Kristoff slumped back into the seat, heart still racing. “I’d rather not have caught her attention at all,” he said, fighting to get his breath back. “She’s endangering herself and this investigation with her-”

Andy barked out a laugh, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

Irritated at having been interrupted, Kristoff scowled at him. “Something funny?”

“You are,” he said, grinning from ear to ear, his attention only barely on the road as he zipped in and out of traffic with ease. “You don’t really get a say in things when Elissa gets her claws in you. It’s just easier if you go with the flow.”

“I’m a federal agent, lad,” Kristoff said coldly, “I’m not really inclined to just _go with the flow_ just because some spoiled little socialite decided to play at cops and robbers. There are lives at stake here, perhaps even the fate of this city, and she can’t just-”

“She can do whatever she wants, cap,” Andy said, his face abruptly serious. “She’s holding all the cards here.”

“And you’d be foolish to bet against her,” a voice rasped from the back seat, amused and rough in timbre. Kristoff glanced over his shoulder to see the dark haired gunman slouched across the back seat- his legs took up an absurd amount of space- a smirk on his face and his gun held at rest on his thigh. 

Kristoff couldn’t help but glance down to check that the safety was on. 

“She’s playing with fire having her goons snatch a federal agent off the-”

“ _I’m a federal agent_ ,” Andy aped in a ridiculously high pitched voice. “ _Did I tell you I was a federal agent?_ Nate, did you know he was a federal agent? I’m surprised I have to-”

“Alright,” Kristoff snarled, “you’ve made your point.”

“We’ve snatched up a dead man, Mister Havener,” Nate rasped from the back seat. “Agent Havener was found dead in a swamp several days ago.”

“Unless you’d rather we just let you out here on the next corner,” Andy said grandly, gesturing as if he meant to pull the car over. “I’m sure we’re far enough from the scene of the alleged homicide that you won’t be immediately seen as suspicious...”

“There certainly won’t be pictures circulating on the news,” Nate continued.

“But sure, we can drop you back at your motel, leave you to your own devices, no leads, no suspects...”

Kristoff ran a hand over his face in frustration. “Does Miss Cousland make it a requirement that all her staff must be as aggravatingly obtuse and smug as she is?”

“Oh no, I throw that in for free,” Andy said with a straight face. 

Sighing and glaring out the window, Kristoff muttered “Of course you do.”

The conversation stuttered to a halt as Andy concentrated on driving. He turned the radio up a little and began to hum along to something that sounded like the River Dane Big Band, his brow creased as he stared into the rear view mirror. Nate was on edge as well, and Kristoff didn’t know what it was outside the car that’d set them off, but he’d been in plenty of stakeouts gone bad to know that particular sort of unease. 

He hadn’t noticed any cars following them, but that didn’t mean anything.

After ten minutes of tapping his fingers irritably against the armrest on the door, he couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked finally, into the silence of the car.

Andy chuckled yet again, endlessly amused by his own wit. “Why, we’re taking you home, Mister Havener,” he said merrily, apparently a little more at ease. If someone had been watching them, Andy had outwitted them.

“Home?”

“We’re going to The Vigil, Mister Havener. Welcome to the family.”

The Vigil- one of the oldest and most elaborate mansions in the whole of the city. Historians claimed that it belonged to one of the first families to settle in the area, pioneers who made a fortune in mining and exploiting the locals- although nobody wanted to openly call it slavery. The Vigil was built on the blood and bones of others, a legacy of money and murder and opulence; in terms of historical landmarks, it was right up there with the Chantry of the Lady Redeemer, and Smuggler’s Park, the home of the Amaranthine Bears. 

He couldn’t say he’d ever seen it in person- this wasn’t exactly the end of town he frequented- but he’d seen it often enough on the news. First the scene of a massive bankruptcy and corruption investigation when the previous owner, a Senator from memory, was accused of bribery, fraud and grand larceny; and then second when Miss Cousland had purchased the property rather extravagantly at auction, several months after her parents’ well publicised assassinations. She’d kept a low profile after their deaths, apart from the media circus that was the court case, and her abrupt purchase of the controversial property so far from her home had marked her reentry into the spotlight. 

Ever since then, she’d been a regular fixture of Amaranthine’s nightlife, and apparently inserting herself as a force to be reckoned with amongst the underworld players of the north. 

The Vigil was just as grand as it appeared on television, and in his wife’s glossy magazines, and when they pulled up at the massive wrought iron gate, the headlights on the car barely reached halfway up the drive. There was a light beside the wall, a gatehouse, and after a moment a stout figure wandered out, torch in one hand and his other carefully positioned over his holster. 

Kristoff wasn’t surprised to see Elissa employed a dwarf as a watchman- she didn’t seem capable of doing anything that anyone expected of her. 

The dwarf wandered over to the car, shining the torch in through the windows as Andy wound his down quickly. “Evening, Mister Smith,” he said in a pleasant tone, “Mister Howe.”

“Evenin’ Voldrik,” Andy said, leaning on the window frame. “Did the lady of the house make it back safe and sound?”

“Oh, aye, she came in about ten minutes ago- she made an appearance downtown and then came straight home.”

“Paparazzi?”

“They followed her back, but they figured she was in for the night.” Kristoff blinked and scowled when he found the torch aimed at his face. “Anything to declare, boys?”

Andy slapped Kristoff on the shoulder in a manner he assumed was supposed to be friendly. “A late night pick up for the lady herself,” he said, far too amused. 

Voldrik peered in through the window, his torch still aimed squarely at Kristoff’s face. “This would be the dead fellow, then?” 

Kristoff held his hand up to block the light from his eyes. “That joke is growing old remarkably quickly,” he said bluntly. 

“Awww, you’re just grumpy because you’re dead,” Andy said indulgently. “You’ll feel better in the morning after a good snooze.”

“Does Miss Cousland keep you on staff to drive people mad with your inane chatter?”

Andy winked at him. “Something like that.”

The dwarf stepped back from the car. “Alright then, gents,” he called, stepping back into the guardhouse, “you go on through, and you have a good evening, you hear?”

The elaborate gate clicked loudly and swung slowly open, and Andy revved the engine and took them slowly up the drive towards the mansion. They came to a stop before the front steps, and Kristoff glanced grudgingly up towards the door. The house that he and Aura had been slowly paying off for the last seven years wouldn’t even have been a tenth the size of The Vigil, and yet Elissa lived here alone.

He didn’t know whether he found it remarkably sad, or disgustingly wasteful. 

He blinked in surprise when his car door swung open; Nate was already out of the car, and had his hand resting rather casually on his holster as he waited for Kristoff to climb out.

Kristoff eyed him warily as he accepted the help and lumbered out of his seat; he would have to keep a closer eye on that one. Nate moved far too silently for his tastes. 

Andy was still humming to himself as he loped up the steps, a lanky sort of grace in his movements as he led them to the front doors. Nate brought up the rear, a half step behind Kristoff, never speaking even though the threat was implicit in his movements.

Andy stopped at the door and put a hand out towards the glass. There was a faint sparkle in the air around his fingers, and a hint of pressure that made Kristoff’s ears want to pop.

Kristoff could have kicked himself for being so dumb; he swore under his breath. “You’re a mage?” he asked bitterly, knowing the answer already.

Andy glanced at him over his shoulder, waggling his eyebrows. “What gave it away?” he asked innocently. The door swung open, the magical ward deactivated, and Andy bowed ridiculously low. “Welcome, Mister Havener, to Chateau D’Elissa.”

Kristoff hesitantly stepped over the threshold, trying not to shudder at the brief prickle of magic he felt crossing under the doorframe. It was defensive magic, and it was powerful- but it was also remarkably subtle as well. The control exhibited in the structure of the spell implied that Andy was no ordinary two dollar apostate.

He’d have to watch him carefully as well. Miss Cousland hadn’t sent any ordinary goons to collect him, it seemed.

He tried not to gape when he stepped into the lobby, but it was a little hard when the overhead chandelier was possibly larger than the dorm he’d bunked in at college. The dark marble floors were polished to a brilliant shine, and there was soft jazz playing somewhere in a distant room. The lobby was enormous, open all the way to the roof three storeys above them, and the floors were terraced like in a theatre. 

Everything was refined and dignified and screamed the sort of wealth that he could only dream about. 

“When you’re done staring,” Andy said casually, “we’ll take you to the boss lady.”

Kristoff scowled, mildly embarrassed at having been caught out. But he nodded sharply and followed Andy as he led him deeper into the labyrinthine abode of a self appointed underworld queen. 

He heard voices up ahead, and realised after a moment that it was the murmur of a police scanner; he glanced at Andy but the apostate gave him no explanation. 

They rounded a corner, the sound of the radio growing louder, and came face to face with yet another dwarf- but this one looked far less professional than Voldrik at the gatehouse. He’d clearly been wearing a suit and tie at some point, but the jacket was gone and the tie was looped loosely around his neck. The shirt was wrinkled and stained, and looking at the bottle held tightly in his hand, it wasn’t hard to guess what had caused the stains.

He belched loudly at them, his eyes glazed. “Andy!” he roared merrily. “And my boy Nate!”

“Howdy, Oghren,” Andy said, patting the dwarf on the shoulder as he brushed past him. “Drunk again, I see.”

“Just a tipple with supper, ‘s all.”

“It’s nearly midnight, Oghren,” Andy called over his shoulder.

“Like I said, just a tipple.”

Kristoff followed Andy past the dwarf, a thousand questions bubbling up within him, but they died on his lips at the sight he encountered.

The room would not have been out of place in any local police station- there were a half dozen desks, neatly arranged in rows of three, and each held a telephone and a typewriter and various odds and pieces one associated with desk work. There was a ridiculously large map of the city on the wall, with entire suburbs marked off with lengths of coloured string. There were flags and pins stabbed into various locations, some of which he recognised as established gambling dens or speakeasies, and some of which made him frown as he tried to memorise them. 

Surely the information on the map could easily come in handy for Vice once he made his way back to normal duties. 

There was a second map, of a similar size to the first, and his eyes widened as he realised it was a map of the entire state. Like the city map, it was divided up with coloured string, pins and flags dotted all the way across.

He was looking at the entirety of a criminal network; not only that, but this was Elissa’s understanding of her rivals’ standing as well. He had before him a blueprint of all the criminal empires in the state.

That sort of information was utterly priceless.

“You’d best keep your eyes to yourself, Mister Havener,” said a woman’s voice; he looked up to see a disapproving matronly type staring at him from the end of the room, a clipboard held tightly in her arms. Her hair was tied back in a rather severe bun, and her business skirt and jacket were in matching shades of brown. Her seams were straight, her glasses were dour and her shoes were sensible- she was, in every way, the antithesis of Elissa. “Just because you have earned the attention of Miss Cousland does not entitle you to take advantage of her hospitality.”

Swallowing back a typical stern retort, Kristoff forced himself towards civility. “My apologies, madam,” he said, “I do not believe we have met?”

“We have not,” she said dryly, stepping back behind the desk and sorting through the documents spread across it. “You may refer to me as Mistress Woolsey.”

“And what precisely is your relationship to Miss Cousland.”

She glanced up at him, a touch of humour in her gaze as she said “I’m her accountant.”

Kristoff had no doubt that she was more than a bean counter, but he wasn’t going to push it so soon after being grudgingly accepted amongst them.

“Where is Miss Cousland at the moment?” 

“She’s in with the doctor,” Woolsey called back, not even looking up from the folder she was perusing.

Kristoff felt an unexpected surge of panic. “She is unwell?” he asked quickly, spinning about to look back into the hallway, as if she would suddenly be visible to him, as if she would appear out of one of the half dozen doors they had passed on their way down here.

The drunk in the suit- Andy had called him Oghren- cackled loudly, and Nate smirked silently as he stalked past. Kristoff had yet to hear the man speak since they’d entered the house, now that he thought about it; he frowned as Nate tossed his coat onto a nearby couch, revealing a rather troubling number of firearms strapped to his body, and made a note to keep a closer eye on him in the future. 

“Miss Cousland is quite well,” Woolsey said, more than a touch of disapproval in her voice; he looked back to her to see her staring at him over the rim of her glasses, her gaze enough to leave a weaker man cringing in his boots. “She is being attended by Mister Seneschal, who spent a number of years as a military doctor.”

“That still makes him a doctor, though,” Kristoff said, frowning in confusion; the lack of concern being exhibited by her staff led him to believe that she was not in any great danger, but it was remarkably peculiar. 

“Varel ain’t no doctor,” Oghren said, belching loudly.

“Had his medical license revoked years ago,” Andy contributed, slouching on the same couch that Nate had thrown his coat onto.

They were talking in circles, their deliberate obtuseness leaving him gritting his teeth in frustration. “Instead of simply alluding to something that you all apparently find to be a greatly amusing mystery, would it not simply be easier to tell me-”

“Lis is a junkie, cap,” Andy said candidly, dragging Nate’s coat over him as if it were a blanket. “And she’s technically supposed to be on a court mandated rehabilitation program. Our dear Varel helps with the bloodwork so she can fudge the results and makes sure she doesn’t overdose again and land herself in hospital or in court.”

Kristoff tried to fight back the wave of disappointment he felt at the revelation, and then immediately chastised himself for the disappointment. Miss Cousland was a dangerous and unpredictable woman, and he had no business concerning himself with whatever tragedies or curiosities had driven her to substance abuse in the first place. “And you are all...” He struggled to find the right words. “Onboard with her blatant self abuse?”

“We all have our demons to fight, Havener,” Andy said sharply, the humour evaporating from his eyes. “Lis has given us a home, and a purpose, and more than that she believes in us. A lot of us-”

“Andy,” Nate said warningly.

“A lot of us have come from less than desirable backgrounds,” Andy continued, ignoring the gunman. “Lis never made a big deal about it. She gave us a second chance. And if she needs a little something extra to get her through each day, you can bet your ass I’m gonna look the other way and let her do her own thing.”

An awkward silence fell across the room. “And you all feel this way?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Elissa is a grown woman, Mister Havener,” Woolsey said coldly. “Her decisions are her own- as are her mistakes.”

Kristoff glanced at Oghren, who smiled somewhat blearily. “Been watching her since she was knee high to a tick,” he said, taking another swig from the bottle. “Named m’ kid after her. If she asked me to go and fetch her the sun, I’d at least come home with burnt hands.”

Last to answer was Nate, who was leaning silently up against one of the desks. At Kristoff’s queried gaze, he shrugged. “She does not hold us to who we were,” he said cryptically, “only to what we can be.”

Her laughter rang into the room from the hallway, and the murmur of conversation followed; Kristoff tensed instantly, and turned towards the door. Footsteps sounded, and after a moment Elissa appeared, talking closely with an older man with silver hair and the bearing of a soldier. Their heads were bowed close together, and as he watched Elissa laughed again and reached up to brush her fingers against his cheek. 

The gesture did not seem to draw any reaction from the other inhabitants in the room, but he felt an absurd wave of... jealousy, at the affection it indicated. 

She was still wearing the gown she’d met him in early that evening, but she’d thrown a silk dressing gown over the top; the hat was gone, and her hair was loose over her shoulders. Most of the makeup was gone, and without the dim, smoky lighting of the bar, she looked-

Younger. More innocent, more relaxed. And god help him, but seeing her at ease, seeing the freckles on her skin and the way her hair wanted to curl slightly now that it was free... he felt the first stirrings of desire in his blood.

He didn’t need to think twice to know how dangerous it was to fall in love with a woman like Elissa Cousland. 

She turned then, as if aware of his silent scrutiny of her, and her smile widened when she spotted him. “Mister Havener,” she said warmly, gliding into the room. “How kind of you to join us in our humble home.”

“I wasn’t given much choice in the matter,” he said pointedly.

Her smile was mischievous. “I fear I have no legitimate excuse,” she said, coming up beside him and placing a hand on his arm. There was a faint sweet scent hanging off her, something icy that tingled at the back of his nostrils. He’d been a cop long enough to recognise the smell of pure cut lyrium. “I was far too concerned for your safety.”

“I’m an undercover FBI agent with nearly twenty years of experience,” he said bluntly. “If anything, I’m concerned for _your_ safety, Miss Cousland.”

She reached up to pat him on the cheek, much as she had for her self appointed doctor; he lurched out of reach, crossing his arms across his chest to make his point clear. 

Elissa eyed him carefully for a moment, and then shrugged, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “You needn’t worry about little old me, Mister Havener,” she said lightly, drifting down the rows of desks to take a folder from Woolsey. “Tell me, did you learn anything interesting from our dear elvish acquaintance?”

Kristoff gritted his teeth. “Cyril found that talking was the least preferable option on offer.” 

She glanced over at him. “He jumped?” At Kristoff’s nod, she smirked. “l knew he would. Or something like it.”

Kristoff blinked in surprise, the confusion giving way to anger a moment later. “You led me to a suspect knowing that he was suicidal?” he roared, surging towards her. 

He didn’t even make it half the distance. Something sharp and cold and insubstantial wrapped around his legs, all but freezing him in place, and a half second later he felt the cold barrel of a gun pressed to his temple. Elissa stood calmly in front of him, drugged and dishevelled but apparently completely in charge of the situation. 

“Thank you, boys,” she said softly, but firmly. “You may release him now.”

Kristoff glanced to the side to find Nate standing beside him, eyes cold as he slowly lowered the gun and put the safety back on. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Andy on his feet, his hands glowing faintly at his sides as he glared fiercely at him. After a moment, he made a sharp gesture and spun away, back to the couch, and the magic that had ensnared his legs fell away. 

For a moment the room was silent, and Elissa took her time strolling the distance towards him. Her gaze was calculating as she thumbed her way through the file Woolsey had handed her, glancing up at him every few seconds. 

“Kristoff,” she said finally, coming to a stop before him, “I’m beginning to suspect that you don’t think particularly highly of my hospitality.”

“I never asked for-”

“You wouldn’t have survived a _day_ in this city without my help,” she said sharply, her eyes flashing angrily. “You have plenty of spirit, messere, I’ll give you that, but you stand out. One has only to look at you to know that you have no place amongst we mere mortals of the underworld.”

She said the last bit sneeringly, as if she was angry at his assessment of them all. As if she was angry at the way he thought of her. “I remind you, Miss Cousland,” he said slowly, “that I have decades of experience-”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Your experience means nothing out here in the real world, Agent,” she said bluntly. “If anything, your willingness to blindly follow the instructions of an attractive woman who briefly dangled an accurate lead in front of you should be an indication of your naivety. You might be an excellent Agent, Kristoff, and you might be an excellent investigator, but this is my town, and I am telling you now that you are in over your head.”

Silence met her words; none of her lackeys were willing to crack a joke, and Kristoff was biting his tongue to stop himself from lashing out at her. 

Elissa stepped in closer, her expression serious. “The Mother is not a woman to be trifled with,” she said softly. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know that. But if you continue to underestimate her, the news reports about Agent Havener’s death will be all too real.”

He eyed her carefully. “You dislike her,” he said quietly. “Why?”

She pushed the folder up against his chest. “Dislike doesn’t even begin to cover the extent of my hatred for The Mother,” she said. “Which is lucky for you, because it means you have me at your disposal.”

He didn’t know if he was supposed to take her words as a flirtation, but he did his best not to blush at the lewd imaginings that immediately sprung to mind at the idea of having Elissa Cousland at his disposal. 

He took the folder from her and glanced down at it. “What is this?”

“It’s a summary of The Mother’s operations in the last six weeks,” she said, sashaying away from him and drooping down on the couch next to Andy. He immediately picked his feet up and dropped them into her lap, without regard for the silk dressing gown or the designer dress beneath it. “Or at least, it’s as much information as I can give you without compromising the identities of my own agents.”

“The FBI already has extensive case files on The Mother,” he said, opening the folder to the first page.

“Undoubtedly,” she said drolly. “And if you’d had access to my information, you wouldn’t have been foolish enough to think this little undercover scheme of yours had any chance of success.”

Kristoff was silent as he scanned the first page, before glancing up at her. “This is certainly... comprehensive,” he said grudgingly, finally coming to accept that she wasn’t just a foolish socialite playing at gangsters for fun. He swallowed his pride and looked at her, trying not to grimace in distaste. “I would be very grateful to work with you and your organisation, Miss Cousland.”

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” she said brightly, her demeanour changing instantly. She patted Andy on the foot and he reluctantly swung his legs out of the way. “My dear Kristoff, it would be my absolute delight to have you indebted to me, and I’m certain I can find room for you with the rest of my little goslings.”

He frowned at her. “That won’t be necessary, Miss Cousland, I have my own accommodations-”

“Nonsense- you made a fool of yourself this evening, and if your cover isn’t already blown it will be soon. Honestly, stomping about in gaming dens and chasing elves to their deaths-”

“That was at _your_ suggestion!”

She winked at him, the corners of her mouth turning up delightedly. “You are far too easy to wind up, Mister Havener,” she said. “And I’ll not hear another word about you heading back to that dreadful flophouse- you’ll stay at The Vigil tonight, for your own safety if nothing else.”

He did his best to stand his ground. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not stay in the home of a self professed crime lord, murderer and drug addict,” he said pointedly.

Elissa waved a hand, as if that was the last of her concerns. “If it pains you so much to be in my presence, Kristoff, you may stay on the boat.”

“The boat?”

“Of course. I have a private yacht moored at the back of the property. It’s fully self contained- several bedrooms, several bathrooms, an extensive galley, a theatre and entertainment room... I assure you, you will be quite safe and you will have your privacy. You won’t have to fear interruptions from any self professed addict crime lords.”

“That’s...” He felt like he was reeling, like his feet had barely touched the ground in the last six hours. He had no idea whether to apologise, or whether to stand by his convictions; the urge to refuse her offer of hospitality was strong, but the knowledge that he needed her help was stronger. “That will be adequate, thank you.”

Her smile was calculating. “Adequate is never a word to be associated with me, Mister Havener. But you’ll learn that in time.”


End file.
